Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Interpretive Staffing at LARO

LARO did not have any personnel who specialized in interpretation until the early 1960s. Although LARO and Regional Office staff did some interpretive planning during the 1940s and 1950s, no interpretive services were provided at all until 1962. The Mission 66 program provided the funding to create interpretive facilities and hire small staff. In 1962, two ranger naturalists were hired, and soon the program moved from planning and development into administration of services. In November 1977, the Interpretation & Resource Management structure was converted into two new operating divisions: Visitor Protection and Resource Management, and Interpretation and Visitor Services. In 1978, the first year LARO had a separate Division of Interpretation, District Rangers and Technicians worked 25 percent of their time in interpretation. Seasonals worked in interpretation most of the time but also had other duties. [20]

LARO's interpretive program through the 1980s accounted for less than 10 percent of the park's staff time and only 5 to 7 percent of the park's base funding. Between 1977 and 1991, LARO interpretive staffing ranged from one to nearly three permanent positions and up to nearly three seasonals. This fell well below the minimum level of interpretive services, which was considered to be two permanent staff and almost four seasonals. Seasonal interpreters were brought on late and were not ready to present programs until early July, well after the visitor season had begun. In some years, interpretive programs had to be cancelled at particular campgrounds, and the Fort Spokane Visitor Center could not be kept open seven days a week. [21]

Dan Brown was hired in 1988 as LARO's Interpretive Specialist. In approximately 1990, a separate Division of Interpretation was again created (evidently the earlier division had been merged back with visitor protection and resource management in the 1980s). This gave the Interpretive Specialist direct-line authority to manage the NRA's interpretive program and a seat at the park's management table. Cultural resource management responsibilities were removed from the Interpretive Specialist position in 1992. The interpretive division at that time had little funding; of the park's seventy-two full-time equivalents in 1989, interpretation accounted for only three positions. When Gerry Tays was hired as LARO Superintendent in 1993, Park Service Regional Director Charles Odegaard asked him to elevate the role of interpretation in the park. Meanwhile, Brown continued to emphasize the inadequacy of staffing and funding for the program in the early 1990s. The division oversaw visitor centers (separated by some ninety miles), five cooperating association sales outlets, six amphitheaters, a living history program, community outreach, wayside exhibits at nine locations, a park publications program, and the museum collection. Funding for a South District interpreter was provided in 1991. Brown deliberately closed down the interpretive programming at Kettle Falls in an effort to force park management to provide funds for a North District interpreter. This position was, in fact, funded in 1995. Brown also took money out of the interpretive program budget that was needed for seasonals in order to hire an education technician, knowing the park would eventually provide the money to bring on seasonals for interpretation. [22]

Brown recognized that managers of particular programs within the park had an interest in protecting their own programs:

We had some extremely sharp individuals for division chiefs while I was there. They were very, very aggressive and were very good at building their own programs. They saw interpretation's growth as challenging resources that could come to their programs. They didn't mind if interpretation grew, as long as it didn't take money away from their program. [23]

Through the 1990s, the interpretive program continued to rely heavily on volunteers and interns. Congress established the Volunteers-in-Parks program in 1970 to augment the visitor experience. At LARO, as at other parks, the volunteers have mostly been involved with the interpretive program. The jobs of these volunteers, some of them experts in particular fields, have included staffing information desks, administering children's programs, assisting with archaeological excavations, working in resource management, working on museum-related projects, performing living history, and serving as Interpretive Hosts at campgrounds. An employee of the National Air and Space Museum started an innovative nationwide program known as "sky talks." He arranged for volunteer astronomers to give talks in national parks, and in 1974 he began a program to train Park Service personnel to give these programs. Sky talks were given at LARO in 1973 and 1974 and perhaps other years as part of this initiative. The number of volunteers each season ranged from less than five to fifty (the latter was in 1985), and their cost per hour to the park was quite low. [24]

Another program that has provided volunteers to the interpretive division of LARO is the Student Conservation Association, founded in 1957. The program funds college or high school students who work in national parks in various capacities. For a number of years, LARO has had one or several Student Conservation Association volunteers who provide interpretive services during the visitor season. [25]

Significance of LARO — What to Interpret?

The 1941 draft agreement between Reclamation, National Park Service, and Office of Indian Affairs assigned the Park Service the responsibility of establishing a museum at LARO. The question of the primary interpretive themes for the recreation area has been debated and refined by the Park Service ever since. In 1941, Mount Rainier Park Naturalist Howard Stagner and Senior Archeologist Jesse Nusbaum spent a couple of days at Lake Roosevelt surveying the "values" of the area. The Park Service Supervisor of Interpretation felt that the main story was geology and that archaeology or history would play a minor role. Stagner suggested that all the interpretive work be administered by one agency (Park Service or Reclamation), including the engineering and reclamation story and natural history, to ensure fair emphasis and effective coordination. Park Service Regional Geologist J. Volney Lewis also emphasized the geology of the area as a primary theme and recommended that the Park Service and Washington state cooperate in a roadside exhibit at Dry Falls State Park. [26]

The 1944 Development Outline and the 1948 Master Plan for LARO also emphasized the geology and natural history of the area and downplayed the historical values. In 1949, Regional Naturalist Dorr Yeager prepared a Preliminary Interpretive Development Outline for LARO. His report focused on the geological and biological values and mentioned as secondary the need for historical exhibits on the "romantic history of the Columbia River as a route for early day travel." He felt that visitors to Kettle Falls would be the most receptive to interpretation and recommended focusing efforts there, with a small museum and conducted nature walks. [27]

During the 1940s and 1950s, Regional Office personnel and the LARO Superintendent researched the history of the upper Columbia River. Aubrey Neasham, Regional Historian, prepared a brief history of LARO in the late 1940s that covered its pre-dam history. In the early 1960s, LARO began preparing resource study proposals for archaeological site surveys and for a more detailed and site-specific history of the Lake Roosevelt area that would help in interpreting the recreation area to visitors. [28]

Two late 1950s documents, the 1957 Statement for Interpretation and the 1958 Museum Prospectus for LARO, addressed the question of interpretive themes once again. The first report emphasized the Grand Coulee as the foremost natural feature to interpret; historical features included Fort Colvile, Fort Spokane, American Indian leaders, pictographs, and Kettle Falls. The second report made specific recommendations about which visitor centers would address which topics: Fort Spokane — history, geology, ethnology, and biology; Kettle Falls — history, ethnology, and biology; and North Marina — geology and desert flora. [29]

By the early 1960s, when LARO had its own interpretive staff, the emphasis of interpretation was on water recreation, with history and natural history as secondary. The 1964 Master Plan for LARO included the goal of providing "informational and interpretive programs primarily oriented to enjoyment of available recreational resources." By 1971, however, water recreation was being given equal weight with human history and natural history in the recreation area's interpretive program. [30]

LARO staff prepared an Interpretive Prospectus for the NRA in 1975. This document mentioned several interpretive themes: establishing National Park Service identity as separate from Reclamation; water recreation; story of the Columbia River; and story of the formation of the reservoir and its effect on the people around it. The prospectus contained some new ideas, including restoring buildings at Bossburg and interpreting the mining history of the area. The geologic story of the Grand Coulee would not be told because it was already being covered at Dry Falls. Interpreters would focus on subjects in the area where the program was being held. Interpretation would show "how the hand of man in modern times has shaped and controlled this region's landscape and how recreation opportunities were made possible by creation of the lake impoundment." By the early 1990s, LARO had added a new, broad theme to those of recreation and human and natural history: the Ice Age Floods and how the recreation area's geologic features relate to that far-reaching series of events. [32]

The nation's bicentennial in 1976 led the Park Service to direct LARO and all other Park Service units to incorporate special Bicentennial activities into their interpretive programs. LARO did so. Other new, rather specialized themes being emphasized nationwide at this time that also affected LARO's programming included energy conservation, resource preservation, cultural minorities, and environmental education. Many of LARO's programs were aimed at increasing recreational visitor safety, often through hands-on instruction in boating, water skiing, sailing, canoeing, and snorkeling. These skills-oriented programs, along with arts and crafts and games, were replaced by 1993 with guided canoe trips and additional environmental education activities. At the same time, campfire programs changed from showing Walt Disney and Marx Brothers films and cartoons to ranger-developed programs on various park resources. One new interpretive effort focused on the park's peregrine falcon reintroduction program. [33]

Contractors completed LARO's Historic Resource Study in 1980. This report suggested quite a few historic sites within the NRA, both above and below the water, that could be interpreted to the public. These sites included Chinese placer mining sites, Hunters Landing, the John Rickey homestead, Klaxta townsite, Seaton ferry, Old Detillion Bridge, Bossburg, flooded communities, and the Hawk Creek orchards and railway grade. Some, but not many, of these sites and topics have been interpreted over the years. For example, North District staff have given gold-panning demonstrations and talked about the history of mining in the area. [34]

The 1998 Draft General Management Plan for LARO outlined several primary and secondary interpretive themes for the NRA: the transition zone between the desert-like Columbia Basin to the south and the slightly wetter Okanogan highlands to the north; river economies, traditional land use, archaeological research, and geo-archaeology studies; the continuing cultural heritage of today's tribes; the fur trade; Fort Spokane; and the dam and reservoir. It also established an "historic and interpretive management area" for LARO that encompassed Fort Spokane and designated sites in the Kettle Falls area. [35]

In the early 1990s, the Park Service changed its interpretive planning process. The Interpretive Prospectus, which dealt with the media portion of interpretation, was combined with the Statement for Interpretation, which covered personal services, to form a document known as the Interpretive Plan, which is currently being prepared. The draft document notes that fewer than 5 percent of LARO's visitors attended interpretive programs. In the recent General Management Plan, the interpretive themes revolve around the NRA's geology, natural history, cultural history, and recreation opportunities. [36]

Ranger-led nature walk at Kettle Falls, 1963. Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO.FS).